| |
| Ian MacKaye & Mike
Watt Part I |
|
Few
contemporary artists command more respect than Ian MacKaye
and Mike Watt, who are among the founding fathers of the
hardcore music community and the Do-It-Yourself ethic it
fostered. MacKaye emerged as a leading figure in the Washington,
D.C.-area hardcore punk scene in the early 1980s, first
in the band Teen Idles, then later with the legendary Minor
Threat. In Minor Threat, he wrote the hardcore song "Straight
Edge" which described the life he and his friends chose
to lead and unwittingly started something of a movement
(no drugs, no alcohol, no promiscuity) copping the same
name. Through his Dischord Records, which he launched in
1980 as a way to document the music coming out of the Washington,
D.C. punk community, countless hardcore D.C.-area bands
have been able to get their music heard. MacKaye's follow-up
to Minor Threat was Embrace and then Fugazi, a still-extant
band which releases its albums through Dischord. Fugazi
is known for its intense live shows, low CD prices, and
its refusal to charge more than $5 or $6 for a show.
Mike
Watt also emerged from the '80s hardcore/punk scene -- albeit
in San Pedro, California -- courtesy of his work with the
Minutemen, a seminal punk band he formed with childhood
friend and guitarist D. Boon. Thanks to a relentless touring
schedule and albums released on SST, the Minutemen - and
Watt's bass playing -- were a huge influence on a generation
of musicians that followed. After D. Boon's tragic death
in a van accident in 1985, Watt and Minutemen drummer George
Hurley formed fIREHOSE in the late '80s. Watt continues
to gig across the country in several projects and through
an always-changing, genre-blending solo career. Watt has
released records on several top independent labels as well
as major label Columbia, but he never compromised his artistic
vision and integrity nor taken a dime in tour support. As
he puts it, "I jam econo." To read more about
- and from -- Watt, check out the previous StarPolish interview
by clicking here.
From
starting bands and launching and running successful record
labels, to booking and self-financing major national tours,
Ian MacKaye and Mike Watt have done it all. In this exclusive
StarPolish Ask the Artist interview conducted by StarPolish
CEO Vivek J. Tiwary, MacKaye and Watt discuss their approach
to music, embracing the DIY ethic and the current state
of the music industry. Due to the length of the conversation,
the interview will be presented in two parts.
|
MUSIC & MARKETING
TIWARY: Hi, Mike, Ian.
Just to let you know what's going on -- basically, over the past
couple of weeks, we let StarPolish members submit questions for
this interview via The Velvet Rope discussion boards. We got a
tremendous response, and we're taking some of the most relevant
ones…
WATT:
Have you heard about this Hurley thing? There are these surfer
clothes, or skater clothes, called Hurley - not [drummer] George
Hurley - and they're selling the shirts with CDs attached to them
in a very aggressive marketing scheme.
MACKAYE: They're
selling band shirts with CDs?
WATT: No, it's
like skate sportswear, and bands will pay them to put promo CDs
on them.
MACKAYE: It's
so England, it's blowing my mind, 'cause the British are so mercenary
about that kind of stuff, and now the marketplace here is going
exactly the same way.
TIWARY: That's
actually a good place to start. People were asking your thoughts
about getting the word out in a grassroots sort of creative way,
and where does the line get drawn between doing the most that
you can to get your music out…
WATT: Selling
records stapled to a shirt at the Gap…(both laugh)
TIWARY: and
crossing over into the realm where you pay more attention to the
marketing than the actual music, or doing things that cross over
the line to making it seem less sincere. How do you -- especially
in a world where there's so much clutter now -- get the word out
creatively while still maintaining the artistic vision?
MACKAYE:
It's hard for me to answer this because generally speaking,
the way I approach things is pretty innate -- it's just what seems
natural to me. So to me it seems really clear what's stomach-able
and what's not stomach-able. I think that, obviously, everyone
has different lines…
WATT: I 'da
ho. You 'da pimp. (laughs)
MACKAYE: (laughing)
My point has always been that I'm clear about what I've evolved
with. My point as a musician is that I want people to hear my
music. It's not about getting paid. So, that's really, really
clear to me. And if I write a song that somebody else wants to
hear, that's great. But I've written plenty of songs that people
don't want to hear, and that's all right, too. But when you ask
me a question like what sort of advice can I give people, in my
opinion it's to just love what they do. And that way, if they
end up thinking they're a failure, at least they would have spent
their time doing something they love. That's it. That's all I
can think of, because each scenario, or each context, is so different
that it's like any advice I can say, "stay true to your heart
or whatever," and those kinds of things, they can be clichés,
of course.
WATT: Well,
me and D. Boone awhile ago came up with the idea that maybe there's
just two categories to the whole world if you're in a band: there's
gigs, and there's fliers. And everything that ain't a gig is a
flier to let people know about the gig. And basically, you're
trying to…John Coltrane said music's a big reservoir, so
you're trying to add something that'll add to the whole pie there.
And I guess you want to let folks know about that, but I think
you gotta bring something there. And I wonder if these CDs stapled
to shirts aren't just clones of something that was very successful
the week before. So to me, the line -- like Ian says -- is very
clear: What's it about? Is it a hustle? Or is it trying to be
a part of this tradition of music or expression. It's kind of
strange too how music is separated out from other things, like
writing and painting...
MACKAYE: I
completely agree with you about that. I always tell people, music
is a form of communication that predates language, straight up.
It's been around forever. And it wasn't until about the turn of
the century that they figured out a way to bottle the water, you
know? Before that, music was a river. It was a river and everyone
could sup from that river. But then someone came along with the
idea that, "Hey, we can bottle this, and we can sell this
water." And people were like, "Well, that's kind of
cool, that's convenient, because I can take it home with me, or
I can put it in my pocket and take it on a walk and have something
to drink," which is fine. That's a reasonable industry, to
go ahead and put some water in a bottle and sell it. That's fine.
But the problem is when they start trying to discourage people
from going to the river, or trying to close the river, or even
worse, poison the river -- then it's not all right. Then it stinks.
And, for me, music is not an industry. Music is not even entertainment.
Music is not just a soundtrack. Music is part of life. It is a
straight-up form of communication, and it resides in every person
in the world. And that's where I'm coming from in terms of music.
That's exactly the world that I want to be… that's what I
want to lean toward. It's sort of like clothes -- you live in
a cold climate in a country that has these kinds of laws that
you have to wear pants all the time, but basically, they're fairly
artificial, they're a bizarre thing when you think about it. If
you think about it, the whole deal is weird -- why does everyone
have to wear clothes all the time? But that's the context in which
I exist. I can appreciate [it] and I can go on with that. At the
same time, when it comes to music, there are certain elements
of what we do with music that are just distasteful. If people
see music as just a living, they're just screwed. They're just
gonna make something that's not music, in my opinion. But there
are plenty of other people out there who are making incredible
music who are not even thinking about money, and that's really
where you're gonna find all the new ideas. It's always in the
free space.
WATT: It's
always much more personal and less of a scam on how to acquire
more objects… it separates you, almost coming from 180 degrees
around. But it is a universe with parallel universes, wheels within
wheels, everybody's got different reasons for using the freeway
-- as long as they don't jump into my window and grab my steering
wheel, I guess I can drive alongside the Volkswagen or the limousine.
That's one thing, for which, Ian, I give you a lot of credit --
preserving autonomy. Because it's funny how, especially some of
these marketing hustles, they sell music… after the youth
thing of rock and roll in the fifties, it became a rebellion thing,
and then an individuality thing. But their goal is to like one
band playing the one song the one way. And all the clothes turn
into uniforms. Which, we got very angry with the Vietcong for
wearing black pajamas and making it hard to tell who the enemy
was… And it seems the same thing with the rock and roll hierarchy
-- they want things very easily to be put into bins and genre.
Genre is, to me, one of the hugest enemies of personal expression
in this music racket or whatever. But you can see how [for] some
forces, this is a total ally of their thinking.
|
|
